Our Christmas Best to You
An unassuming tape from the late '80s, sent as a holiday gift to media friends by what its now BONNEVILLE INTERNATIONAL, turns out to be the most heartwarming of Yuletide messages, an instant seasonal classic.
David McGee
‘How Inexpressibly Sad Are All Holidays’
1863. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW's wife had died in a fire, his son had been seriously wounded in the Civil War. The poet, in despair, still found a reason to believe and wrote the stanzas that later became a beloved seasonal song.
Alternate Routes, Same Destination
New holiday fare by KRISTIN KORB and Canada's folk duo SILENT WINTERS take alternate routes to arrive at the same destination: the heart--ours and the season's.
The Deep Roots Video Holiday Card
From DEEP ROOTS to our readers, a holiday card of the video variety, featuring the ghost of Jacob Marley, Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners and Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong in memorable seasonal moments
The Mythic Weight Of Phil Spector’s Christmas Gift
In 1963, PHIL SPECTOR thought his CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOU album would be a career-defining event. Then a not-so-funny-thing happened to him on his way to musical world dominance. BILLY ALTMAN fills us in.
A Soul Ever More Grateful For What It Knows Of Love
An updated review of a holiday classic: B.B. KING's A CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION OF HOPE. Indeed it is.
Rise Above, Find More Peace, Make More Love
KEB' MO' delivers the finest Christmas album of the 2019 season in MOONLIGHT, MISTLETOE & YOU. Highlights include a duet with MELISSA MANCHESTER on 'I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.'
Christmas in All Hues of Blues
CHRISTMAS IN ALL HUES OF BLUES, an updated review from 2012, spotlighting four classic blues-oriented Yuletide collections: DEATH MIGHT BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS and tBLUES, BLUES CHRISTMAS, Vols. 1-3
What Christmas Is As We Grow Older
From CHARLES DICKENS's twopenny weekly, Household Words, a 1951 meditation, 'What Christmas Means as We Grow Older,' an optimistic paean written the same year the author's father and daughter died.
Sublime & Swingin’
A tribute to the late, great VINCE GUARALDI, and his masterpiece within a masterpiece, the score for the holiday classic TV show, A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS